This is a very good point- consider all of the friction points that make self-checkout slow and cumbersome. How many of them apply to manned checkouts?
The weight thing is absolutely the most frustrating, and I would put money that it's not an effective theft deterrent.
I don't know if it's intentional, but the places around me seem to have largely solved the problem of cashiers being faster, by putting the slowest people on earth as cashiers...
Depending on the system you have, some of them have a divider bar halfway down for that exact purpose.
Are they obfuscated in any way? Depending on your client, you may not be able to see the names and subjects. But if you didn't have the NZB, is there any real chance you could find it otherwise?
First, a massive amount of content is removed. You won't find a lot of popular, unencrypted content these days on usenet. It's all encrypted and obfuscated now to avoid the bots
Speaking of bots, I don't think you realize how much of this process is automated, or how wide of a net is being used. The media corporations all have enormous collected libraries of material. It gets posted constantly to all sorts of places. This includes public torrents, public usenet, YouTube, PornHub (yes, really, even for non-porn), Facebook, TikTok, Tumblr, GNUtella, DDL sites....
The list goes on and on. Each one gets scanned for millions of potentially infringing items, often daily. No actual people are doing those steps.
Now, throw in things like private torrents, encrypted usenet posts, invite-only DDL, listings that use '3' instead 'e' or those other character subscriptions..... These require actual humans to process. Humans that cost money, and a considerable amount of it. As a business, you have to show a return on investment. Fighting piracy, even at its theoretical best, doesn't increase revenues by a lot.
You mention revenue and breaking even, but you left out an important detail. Your time is free. They don't have to pay $10/month, they have to pay $10/month + $20/hour for someone to deal with it. And most pirates of that level will just find another method.
Not constructive dismissal, because the goal isn't to place the burden on the employee. On whatever date, they will all be terminated without cause (layoff) if they choose not to relocate. There is no goal of forcing them to quit. Presumably, Apple has filed (or will file in due time) things like the WARN Act notification.
This is a PR move to hide the layoffs from the general public, but not from the law.
It's perfectly legal, unless there are some additional details not mentioned. For instance, if it amounted to discrimination on race, or was in retaliation for unionizing. What would be illegal about it? California can't just force a company to stay in one place. Companies move offices, even headquarters, all the time.
Your math would be covered by what's known as a relocation package. Often, it's a basic lump sum to (theoretically) cover the costs of moving. You can either accept it or not. Same for any pay adjustments that may come with it.
Layoff isn't a legal term. The closest would be terminated without cause, which is exactly what this is. Since California (along with every state that isn't Montana) is an "At will" state, this again is perfectly legal.
It's a shitty decision, but there's nothing stopping them from making it.
Return to office has roughly 30% quit rate across the board.
Job relocation, especially that far away, is nearly 100%. Very few people are willing to uproot their entire lives, and those of their family, just for a job.
In effect, Apple has decided to lay off this entire office and hire a new one in Texas.
I imagine it's a safety thing. This way, every time you get into a Bolt (and possibly other EVs; I don't know how their switches are configured) it's in a known state. You will not be surprised (the hard way) when you pick it up from the mechanic, or your SO drove it previously, etc, and discover that it's in 2-pedal mode.
This is always a user-enabled option. On the Chevy Bolt, it's a button on the center console that you have to activate every time you turn it on.
Note that Tesla, specifically, does not allow any third-party repairs. They simply don't make the parts available to independent shops. They are very much like Apple in this regard.
From my understanding, EVs from Chevy and Ford follow the same model as their ICE models. You may have difficulty finding independent mechanics that can work on their EVs, but it's not because the manufacturer is freezing them out.
How many lights do you see?
What's weird is how many refuse to let you just enter the code on the sticker. You have to search through their stupid menu to find it, and it may not be what you actually have